Check out your state programs....they might help pay for college

[Melissa]

We have three children....a junior, sophomore, and 8th grader

We have had many discussions about college over the years with them and have settled on the agreement that we will match scholarship and work money. Anything else they will have to take out in loans. They are also allowed to live at home, thereby cutting room and board expenses. It's amusing how resourceful they become when they know they have some financial responsibility in the matter.

My oldest daughter started doing research last year to see what was available. She already knows she wants to study actuarial science and OSU has a great program for it so she would plan to live and home, and commute with her father since he works downtown (no car payments, or gas). She found a program called The Academy Program (formerly College Credit Plus). It allows students in high school to take classes at state colleges for free (school district pays the bill).

She still gets to take part in any high school activities she likes...track, cross country, drama and get up to 30 college credits at the same time.

That's a $10,000 savings!!!!

Her reward for her research and effort....a commuter eating plan 😄

[lakemom]

Good for her!  My only caution would be for her to check with her chosen university and more specifically her chosen PROGRAM to make sure her credits will transfer/count.  We have a similar program where certain math/English classes count for college credit and we do pay a small fee for that.  I didn't do it with my dd and she was mad at me that she couldn't get out of a freshman math class.  So, we paid the fees for her brother only to find out that while the English credit transferred the math credit wouldn't for the engineering program!  This was at 2 different state schools.  Now ds's math credit could transfer as a gen ed credit but not a math credit.  Weird.  I have heard good things about Ohio's programs from family member though. 

[chicagomeg]

Ohio actually requires the state schools to accept community college credit and has a whole predefined list of how everything transfers. My husband did it and graduated with Bachelor's at 20. It sounds like OP's kid is actually going to tOSU though, which is also allowed in Ohio and an even better bargain.

[EricP]

While getting college credit is high school is all well and good and can get them ahead in their studies it often times won't save them money because of the price structures of schools these days. 

Most schools these days don't charge per credit hour.  If you're a full time student then you get charged the same amount whether you take 16 credit hours or 22 credit hours and there are enough Pre-Requisite chains that will make it difficult to get out of College before the 4 year mark.

[chicagomeg]

While getting college credit is high school is all well and good and can get them ahead in their studies it often times won't save them money because of the price structures of schools these days. 

Most schools these days don't charge per credit hour.  If you're a full time student then you get charged the same amount whether you take 16 credit hours or 22 credit hours and there are enough Pre-Requisite chains that will make it difficult to get out of College before the 4 year mark.

Ohio has all the worked out, I swear. Tons of my friends did this and all of them graduated at least a full semester early, usually a year. And note the OP's daughter is enrolling at OSU, not a 2 year institution.

[EricP]

While getting college credit is high school is all well and good and can get them ahead in their studies it often times won't save them money because of the price structures of schools these days. 

Most schools these days don't charge per credit hour.  If you're a full time student then you get charged the same amount whether you take 16 credit hours or 22 credit hours and there are enough Pre-Requisite chains that will make it difficult to get out of College before the 4 year mark.

Ohio has all the worked out, I swear. Tons of my friends did this and all of them graduated at least a full semester early, usually a year. And note the OP's daughter is enrolling at OSU, not a 2 year institution.

Yes, I'm well aware that Ohio State is a 4 year institution, not sure why you would think I thought they were going to a 2 year institution.  Most 2 year places do charge per credit hour and the 4 year State Us are the ones that charge the same regardless.  But that's good that you're friends got out a semester or two early, but that isn't always possible, depending on program and school.

(This isn't just a talk about Ohio forum, trying to provide info for others thinking they can save money by getting 7 credit hours out of the way)

[Bracken_Joy]

While getting college credit is high school is all well and good and can get them ahead in their studies it often times won't save them money because of the price structures of schools these days. 

Most schools these days don't charge per credit hour.  If you're a full time student then you get charged the same amount whether you take 16 credit hours or 22 credit hours and there are enough Pre-Requisite chains that will make it difficult to get out of College before the 4 year mark.

Actually, for most schools it is the same price between 12 and 17 credits (full time range). Anything above 17, you have to pay more, and depending on the school, get department and adviser waivers to do more than full time.

Also, even if it doesn't save her money in a given term, she will need fewer terms. That is saving money. The whole point is to get pre-reqs out of the way and start "further up the chain".

[expectopatronum]

To add another anecdote to EricP's, my 4-yr state school charged the same based on everyone taking 15 hours. It was the same price form 12-18 hours, and they charged extra when you went over 18. I took in ~24 hours of AP credit, CLEP tested out of another 3, but still graduated on a 4 year plan. This was because of my particular engineering degree, which only offered certain courses in spring or fall and you had to complete them in sequence, and because not all the AP credit was applicable to my degree plan. It was impossible to graduate early unless you skipped through your entire freshman year; one friend of mine did do this, but they made an exception for him and he had to take some of those "freshman" courses later as a senior due to some silly rules. He's the only one that's ever done it in our major.

Everyone else I knew in engineering used the opportunity of AP credit to 1) reduce courseload, 2) avoid summer school, or 3) free up spots to take other interesting (or pre-med) classes/do research/etc, which would have sent them over 4 years. A friend who was an English major at our school graduated a full year early purely on accident after using her AP credit; just goes to show it really did depend on the degree. I knew I wanted to do engineering, but not at what uni, so the AP credit was just an added bonus - I didn't know how it would exactly affect my graduation plans. Kudos to OP's daughter if she's got it all planned out though!

AP credit was definitely beneficial for me, but not because i graduated early. IMO it helped me keep awesome grades and graduate on-time. About 15% of our class did not. Most were working on med school pre-reqs they couldn't squeeze into an already-packed degree plan or had switched majors.

I did, however, manage an excellent PSAT score which took care of most of my financial worries. My parents generously supplemented my scholarships by giving me 10% the value of scholarships earned in living money every semester, and I took out a job for fun money. Not going to lie - the fact that I'd be directly benefiting from earning scholarships encouraged me to pick the school I did (and avoid student debt) and seek out lesser-known scholarships, some of which were an easy target (one was literally just test scores and a 1-sheet application and it got me $5000....has since lost funding from the state).

[CommonCents]

Yes, I've done this.  I applied for and was accepted to the early admission Honors Program at USCD.  For $400 a term, I could take up to 2 courses each term (6 classes total) and was required to take at least 2 classes.  Scheduling in my high school gap time was a bit tough.  (One of the ones I did was after school, but for the most part I couldn't do that as I had high school commitments.)

Technically, I did not have enough high school credits to graduate high school.  My school overlooked it.  ;)

Here's the thing.  My college was only willing to give unspecified credits for the most part - not credit out of basic requirements graduation requirement or pre-req credit (except Psych 1 for some reason).  So it wasn't as useful as it would have been had I gone to a school that wasn't as rigorous academically.  If I had been really careful on getting my pre-reqs in the right order, did not double major and/or did not do a quarter abroad, I *might* have been able to graduate a quarter or two early.  But otherwise all it did was prepare me for the more rigorous coursework at my college better than my high school did. 

DH similarly had loads of AP credit (8?) that wasn't really useful. 

So research what the credit will do for her at the schools she wants to attend before you get too excited.

[EricP]

While getting college credit is high school is all well and good and can get them ahead in their studies it often times won't save them money because of the price structures of schools these days. 

Most schools these days don't charge per credit hour.  If you're a full time student then you get charged the same amount whether you take 16 credit hours or 22 credit hours and there are enough Pre-Requisite chains that will make it difficult to get out of College before the 4 year mark.

Actually, for most schools it is the same price between 12 and 17 credits (full time range). Anything above 17, you have to pay more, and depending on the school, get department and adviser waivers to do more than full time.

Also, even if it doesn't save her money in a given term, she will need fewer terms. That is saving money. The whole point is to get pre-reqs out of the way and start "further up the chain".

Right, I was off on the exact numbers, but my point was still correct, no point in making a ticky tack issue of what the exact credit numbers are.  As for getting "further up the chain" it's a lot harder than one would expect because there's often a few things that can't be offered or that even if they're the same the college won't give you credit or they'll tag you with an "in-residence" minimum credit hour requirement.  YMMV.  The main point is pay attention to these things as a parent and don't just assume if they get 4 or 5 AP classes that you're going to save money.

As for the others talking about decreasing workloads, allowing you to do "fun credits," whole heartedly agree with those sentiments and that's the main point I'm trying to make.  Take AP classes to advance yourself, but don't expect to save money.

[Bracken_Joy]

The school district is paying the bill though. This is a zero investment situation. Yes, depending on the details, maybe your child will only be well rounded, have more credits so they can register for classes sooner, and be more qualified for scholarships... for free. Where is the downside here?

[CommonCents]

The school district is paying the bill though. This is a zero investment situation. Yes, depending on the details, maybe your child will only be well rounded, have more credits so they can register for classes sooner, and be more qualified for scholarships... for free. Where is the downside here?

I think people agree that the classes can be worthwhile (I certainly do - stopped me from being bored in class quite so much), several of us just cautioned not to get too excited about the promise of shaving time off the 4-yr college.  It's great if it works out, but trying to highlight our personal experiences where it didn't work out or pitfalls (e.g. scheduling the classes), so the OP wouldn't be surprised.

[EricP]

The school district is paying the bill though. This is a zero investment situation. Yes, depending on the details, maybe your child will only be well rounded, have more credits so they can register for classes sooner, and be more qualified for scholarships... for free. Where is the downside here?

Agree with CommonCents.  No Pitfalls, just OP's statement "That's a $10,000 savings!!!!" may be a little premature or may not be applicable to everyone.

[Cyanne]

My son took advantage of the PSEO program in Minnesota. Between the AP classes he took and his credits earned through PSEO he will start his freshman year with 55 credits. The credits he earned through PSEO count as both high school credit and college credit. The PSEO program also pays for books! This will have saved us around $30,000 in tuition, fees and books!

[MayDay]

Caveat to the Ohio program- not all districts are happy to pay.

My district offers a lot of high level maths classes.  By and large this is a good thing! They aren't paying for you to take the college ones unless you finish the ones they offer.  Very few kids get past 2 years of high school calc  (equivalent to calc 1 and 2 in college) and AP statistics.  Currently there is one kid in the high school who got past all that math and took college math his senior year, and this is a school with a very high proportion of gifted kids. 

I don't know about English as I sub mostly in math and science. 

In my high school in rural Iowa, they offered few advanced classes, so I was able to take them at the community college for free, and they all transferred perfectly, enabling me to both skip a semester to intern, and take virtually no classes my last semester.  But....what's better.....being at a mediocre high school with no advanced classes, and getting some CC classes, or being a HS that offers a ton of advanced classes? 

[Melissa]

Caveat to the Ohio program- not all districts are happy to pay.

My district offers a lot of high level maths classes.  By and large this is a good thing! They aren't paying for you to take the college ones unless you finish the ones they offer.  Very few kids get past 2 years of high school calc  (equivalent to calc 1 and 2 in college) and AP statistics.  Currently there is one kid in the high school who got past all that math and took college math his senior year, and this is a school with a very high proportion of gifted kids. 

I don't know about English as I sub mostly in math and science. 

In my high school in rural Iowa, they offered few advanced classes, so I was able to take them at the community college for free, and they all transferred perfectly, enabling me to both skip a semester to intern, and take virtually no classes my last semester.  But....what's better.....being at a mediocre high school with no advanced classes, and getting some CC classes, or being a HS that offers a ton of advanced classes? 

Our school district is like that too.  They cannot take a college course if there is an advanced option, but my daughter already "topped out" on those classes and she is taking US Government this summer to cover requirements for high school graduation. 

I agree with people that not everyone will save that much money.  It is helpful for us that she already is pretty certain she will be attending OSU after high school graduation anyways and her 2nd choice (FSU) will accept all of her credits.

Just thought I'd try to help people out who think the only option is to take AP classes